Love this baby.

Ok seriously, this baby is far too cute, and far too sweet.  We are all so blessed to have him.  Each of my children were such miracles, such blessings, and such a joy (despite the fact that I somehow landed three of the worst sleepers ever, but who's keeping track of that?).  But there is something to be said for the feeling you have when you have received something that was so long awaited for. My verse that describes this is  Proverbs 13:6 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.   My heart was sick each month that I realized that God was not going to cure my barren womb.  My hope was lost in a way.  And although only true hope, true joy, and true happiness comes from the Lord, He is using this sweet baby to bring a tree of life (hope and joy) again to this Momma.  Ethan was born to us January 29th, but was grown in our hearts for years prior to his birth.  He is everything we could have hoped for.  And everything we don't deserve.  Jake and I are not "deserving" parents.  Our walk is not always very strong, we bicker and argue, we are sometimes very immature and ungrateful.  YET the Lord saw fit to bless us again.  This, THIS my friends is what blows us away.   We have had our challenges, of that be sure.  Ethan came with some minor but chronic health issues, he is terrible teether and sleeper, the debt we owe for the adoption is not a fun thing to think about, or pay off either.  Our fairly "easy" life prior to Ethan has been blown to bits.  We can't go anywhere without frantically yelling for one another to grab a bottle, or diaper, bib, or pacifier while trying to get out the door without forgetting one of Ethan's "essentials"  :-)    We don't sit quietly in church anymore with our two older children by our side, we now bounce a baby, feed a baby, or walk to the back to sway him in our arms.   Date nights are harder now as far few people sign up to watch the two kids PLUS the cranky teething drooling non-sleeping baby  ;-)   
But I would not trade a THING, and we know exactly what the Lord was up to.  Ease, comfort, security, normalcy, these are words that I am convinced are not in our Lords vocabulary.  He loves to shake things up!  And I for one am glad that he does.  We love our family and Ethan has grown us all so much closer.

Every child is a gift, no matter when they are born or to whom they are born to.  Embrace what God calls a blessing and jump on board to see why!

Living with health issues.

(photo credit)


I have so many blog posts that I have been wanting to write lately. It's kinda driving me crazy that I can't get on the computer more to get them out of my head and on to bloggy world. But every day I say "when I am done with this task I will hop on that computer and get that post written!" And yet, that task leads to another which leads to another which leads.....you guessed it...... to another! :-) But I am NOT complaining. I am joyous, and I will explain way. You see, I am blown away that I am even able to get "tasks" done. There was time, not very long ago, where I was lucky to get my self going each day, and was barely achieving my small goals of keeping the basics running. This was my life for a few years, but increasingly more so over the last 18 months. I will tell you in a moment how God is bringing healing into my life, in more ways than one. But first, I want to go into what it's like to deal with health issues, and to doubt God's goodness in the midst of it.

For the longest time I didn't know what was going on with me. I was noticing differences in my health, but was seeing it as several UN-related symptoms. As many of you know, over 3 years ago, my husband and I felt convicted, compelled, and convinced that we should leave the conceiving of children in His capable hands. We had the Vasectomy reversed and awaited the inevitable pregnancy. It never came. As we went through the first two years we assumed the vasectomy had failed. I became consumed with sadness. I so wanted to have new life in my womb, but none came. We finally went to the doctors to have the semen analysis done. The results......The reversal had worked.

"hmmmmmmm........ This is odd", I thought to myself. I was pretty sure I had two children without any sort of medical help already. How could it be me?? So the tests began. Nothing invasive really. An ultrasound, some blood tests, a dye test. That's when I was diagnosed with PCOS. Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. I couldn't have more misunderstood this diagnosis. I was assured by the doctor that this was a minor thing. That likely one day with some medical intervention we would be able to conceive.

Wait, what was that word? "Medical Intervention"? Oh no. We had sort of handed that area of control over to God. Does it go both ways???? Do we let Him decide How many more and also IF we have more?

I talked to my husband that night. He assured me that for him, it did go both ways. We accept it if he gives us "too many" (as we sometimes feared in the beginning) and we accept it if he gives us no more at all.

I can't say that I fully agreed at the time, but I submitted.

I now had a "diagnosis", but still, nothing made sense. My diagnosis was just.....well....a diagnosis. What was that going to do for me? It didn't tell me WHAT was wrong with me. It didn't tell me what I could do about it either. Getting a PCOS diagnosis was like getting told "we're not quite sure what's wrong with you, what caused it, or how bad it will get. We only now it's not good, and it will get progressively worse with age." yay :-/

Over the next year and a half I would gain 50 pounds, have my face wrinkle, grow facial hair, be tired every single day, crave sugar like a heroin addict, have mood swings, experience blood sugar spikes and severe drops, have heart palpitations every morning when I rise, hot flashes, night sweats, have my face cover itself in brown spots, headaches, joint pain, night time swelling of my arms and hands, and truly the list could go on. I think though I have communicated that overall, I did not feel well. I was stripped of my youthful energy, and my beauty. I am not even sure if I ever thought of myself as beautiful, but regardless of what I thought of myself before, I sure knew that I wasn't beautiful any longer. Dealing with the complete lack of energy was one of the harder symptoms. It was a torturous feeling to watch everything that needed to be done just sit there and not get done, knowing it would be waiting for me tomorrow. Only tomorrow, I wouldn't feel any different that today.
I watched my kids worry about me, and even become lazy for lack of direction and encouragment because I was just too tired or in too much pain to care. I received lectures and judgmental stares from family members and even my husband. I don't blame them really, for none of us really knew what was wrong with me. It's not like they could say "Oh poor Val, she has____(fill in blank with dreaded disease)__ " They would just look at me and say "Val you have to get this stuff done, your house is falling apart the kids are falling behind in school". You just need to pick yourself up by the boot straps and march on. It broke my heart.

For the first time in years my infertility, which had been at the forefront of my thoughts, now took the back seat.

What was wrong with me, I am only in my twenties???I would scream this at first at myself. In my head. Then after of months of praying for healing, I began to yell that at God. I was careful not to let anyone see that pain. I would try and smile around others and wait until I was alone in the shower or driving by myself to the store and then I would unleash it. My own painful dialog would go something like this....

"God, you can heal me, why don't you!!!????"

"Dang it. I'm sorry Lord, that was uncalled for. Maybe I am having another hormonal mood swing. I think I have been getting a lot of those lately."

"Wait a second, you caused me to be this way! If you didn't want me to feel sad and angry and out of control, why did you do this to me?"

"Dang it. I'm sorry again"

"I am just so angry God! Why were you not content to take away my ability to have children? Why did you take my health, my vitality, and by beauty as well??"


All I can tell you is that during those dark months I received a lot of interesting stares from fellow drivers on the road. I can't tell you how many times I have cried and yelled in my car only to look over at a red light and wish really really really badly that I had tinted windows.


Eventually I handed over the infertility. I gave it to God, and asked forgiveness for ever giving it such a high place in my life. I still asked that he would return my fertility one day to what it used to be, but I was content to leave God in control. I even, slow as it was, was brought to the point where I had to become content with my poor health (not to mention saggy boobs and growing mid-section).
I knew if I let this anger consume me I would loose my faith. I would loose everything. I knew my faith was weak, and small, but I still had faith. I knew God was in control, I knew God sent His Son for me. I knew he had forgiven me so much. I knew I was truly blessed. I knew I had no right to be angry at God.

But still I doubted his character and goodness.

I stayed in the word daily but nothing touched my heart as it had before. I kept praying but instead of my prayers drifting to Heaven like incense, they stopped at the ceiling. It had to change.

Slowly but determinedly, I turned my heart back towards God (or maybe HE turned my heart back towards Him). I acknowledged my sin before him, repented, and once again accepted His FULL and gracious forgiveness.
That was the best thing to happen to me in a long long time.

I am now on the road to healing. In more ways than one. First I began to focus my heart on Christ and heavenly things, not on earthly temporal things. Then I began to learn my habits of "blame when pained"(as I like to call it), I prayed often for God's help in the process and still do. Following my change in my relationship with God, I began to seek out better medical help and better answers.

I now understand so much more about my body than I ever thought that I would. After 6 doctors I now see a very knowledgeable doctor who is an MD but also has her degree and licensing in Naturopathy. She has reviewed all my blood tests, and all my samples, and all my symptoms and is helping me find out what exactly is going wrong and what I can do to treat it. It was great to have a doctor spend more than 7 minutes with me and also know what the tests mean.
For one, I have severe hormonal imbalances. When I say severe I mean very very bad. I am also insulin resistant (caused by the hormonal imbalance), have adrenal fatigue, and my thyroid is not working properly.

So here are some things I am doing to help my health,
I am taking natural (not synthetic) Hormone replacements
I am taking a natural Thyroid
I am taking Vitamin D (which I am also severely deficient in)
I drink water first thing in the morning every morning with lemon in it (helps the liver, which in turn helps the Adrenal gland)
I am taking 4 capsules of good quality Fish oil (helps the hormones and thyroid)
I am walking daily
I am not eating refined sugar and have severely limited any other sugars like honey.


Since being on the natural hormone replacements, and vitamins, I have stopped gaining weight for the first time in a year and a half. In addition to not gaining weight I have also lost 5 pounds. The biggest difference I have noticed is my energy. It is amazing to have energy again! I still have a few days here and there where my energy wipes out but it usually only lasts an hour whereas before it would last for 4 hours or more. I just feel overall so much better. The swelling at night has also gone down, my hot flashes are few and far between and I am becoming so much more productive. It has been so great. I can't tell you what a treat it is to get up and have a 1000 things to do and know I just might be able to get them done, or at least try!
Most importantly, by the Grace of God, I am learning to lean on and Trust Him in all things. I am breaking bad habits daily and tearing down walls of doubt.

What I have learned through all this will carry with me for a long time. Top three...
1)Never take for granted your health or fertility. It is NOT guaranteed to always be there, so be grateful while you do have it.
2)God is good. All the time. When we view Him as anything else every trial is a double trial. It is too hard to go through a trial and doubt His goodness at the same time. Nor is it right.
3)There are seasons in life. There is a time for everything under the sun. Yes some things last a lifetime. But a lot of the time if you hold fast with perseverance and patience the reward is great when the trial is over. I wish to God I had persevered with patience and faith. I did not. I still have wounds from those dark times and very bad habits that the Lord is still weeding out of me due to my lack of patience and lack of trust in Him.

I realize that I have once again been very honest in my blog post. And that lends me open to some criticism I am sure. I realize I was vain to complain about beauty, I realize I should have been glad that it was me and not my children suffering (as that would have been much much worse) , I realize a lot of things. But I also know that some people are going through things similar and they need to know that God is faithful. And they also need to know that they are not alone, and that they are not the only ones who think those thoughts and who doubt. I want to offer encouragement through my honesty and also stand as a monument that screams "Do not waste you time blaming God! Turn to him for love and comfort and you will be comforted! Do not give in to anger, it will poison your life."

If anyone would like to talk to me personally about any of this, or just need a listening ear for anything you are going through. I am here. Just email me at sgtswife03@yahoo.com.

The CALL to adopt.

I first want to clarify that I am in no way able at this time to speak about the experience of adoption. While we have had many many wonderful friends and family members adopt children, we have yet to do so. I did want to share though why we feel CALLED to this great, beautiful, terrifying task.

It started with the knowledge that my husband and I always felt "comfortable" with the prospect of adoption. What I mean by that is neither my husband nor I ever felt weird, or scared of the thought of adopting a child. This is not to say that our whole marriage we "wanted" to adopt, but only to say that we were both open and comfortable with the idea of it. We actually never really considered it until about 5 years into our marriage. At that time we were "done" having children biologically. We, as most of you know, decided that after much pressure from family and ourselves we would get a vasectomy after my son was born. When he was two weeks old, we did. At the time we felt totally OK with that decision. A few years went by and my heart began to break for the young girls in the foster care system. I wanted to "save" them. I wanted to give them a home, and love, and show them the Jesus that I had found. The Jesus that not only saved my perishing soul, but saved me from the pit I was determined to bury myself into.
As I continued to think, pray, and discuss with my husband about this process of adopting a young teen, the Lord blessed me with the wisdom to see the folly in the idea. He allowed me to realize how unwise it would be at only 26 years of age, with two young children, and an unbelieving husband, to take on such a task. Of course God can do amazing things through young and ill-prepared people, but this was not one of those times. This was a time where I asked and was told no. And He was gracious to show me the reasons why. I look back now and can see so very clearly, how unprepared I was then. I can see now, how many years my husband and I would work on our marriage only to completely destroy it again and again until finally the Lord would show us how to put HIM in the middle of it and start the healing process, which is where we are at now. We have moved 3 times to three different states since then. God also showed me other ways to express my heart towards young girls, like through teaching Sunday school class for teen girls, and through volunteering as a counselor at a Crisis Pregnancy center. I also really loved going with a friend of mine to help lead a bible study at a teen juvenile detention center for girls. I grew so much doing those things and I am so grateful to have had those opportunities.

About a year after the Lord revealed to me to not adopt a young teen girl, he put it into my heart to have more children biologically. That began months of prayer. I was so confused why I was desiring more children. I HATED being pregnant for the first four months. I wasn't that great at birthing them either. And neither of my children slept through the night for months and months. They were finally getting independent! I was free of diapers and night time waking. But there was a small voice in my heart calling for more children. Around this same time my husband committed his life to the Lord and also miraculously changed his mind about the vasectomy. You have no idea what a shock it was when a man who swore he wouldn't ever have children, says to you he feels convicted to reverse the vasectomy and leave it all in God's hands (this even after having two children already).

It was right. We both knew it. We found a doctor (also a miracle)and reversed the vasectomy 2 days after my husband came home from Iraq. Even during that time of thinking of having more biological children, we would both talk fondly, and often, about the possibility of adopting as well. It was so weird. Why did we keep talking about adopting, right on the wings of our HUGE decision to have more biological children??? It could have only been God. We bought bunk beds, and stored things we thought we may need to keep for future children. We prepared our hearts for a future of children, either biological or adopted, preferably both.

As we sit here now almost 3 years from that time, knowing we never were able to conceive a child again, nor probably ever will, our desire for adoption has not been quenched.

However, I do have to say there have been doubts. Some thoughts of ...
"What are we doing thinking about adoption!? Our children are 9 and 7, and completely independent. We can go anywhere with them. We can take vacations and travel, and finally go to the bathroom in peace. Why are we thinking of ruining that?"

Other thoughts we have had are a little less selfish and they go like this....
"What if we are pursuing adoption out of our own selfish need to have more children? What if this is not God's will for us? What if God only intended for us to have two children and we are stepping out of his will by forcing this issue?"

My husband voiced that concern about our motives the other day while lying in bed. He looked at me and said, "How can we be sure we are not meant to just have two?"

My answer came so easily it stunned even me. "Look at the pieces of the puzzle just fall into place. Why on earth do we have a carseat, two boosters, a baby potty, a swing, a bouncy, and baby clothes in our garage when our children are years and years out of those things? Why do have only two children but still insist on driving a mini-van when we could easily fit into something more economical? Why in the world did we feel compelled to buy a 4 bedroom, 2200 sqft house for only 4 people? The answer is we have felt for YEARS that we are not complete. This family was meant to welcome more in. That has not come from us. We know it. We didn't buy this house because we like big houses, we bought it because we kept saying 'look how many children we could put in all those bedrooms!'. We do not keep the mini-van because it is cool, we keep it because we know we will need the room one day."

We KNOW we are being called to adopt.

He agreed with my answer.

IF you knew us you would know, we don't like big houses just because they are big, and we are not pack rats that keep old baby stuff. We have meticulously, and yet almost accidentally, kept this stuff and I believe God is the reason it has all worked out this way.

Now the answer to, how, where, and when we will adopt, we do not know. But the more we discuss our plans to adopt as well as our motives, the more we become convinced that we are being called. Not by our own will, but by HIS.

Some things on our hearts and mind lately about adoption are....

~Which agency to use. It can be scary to trust your heart, your time, and your money to people who may or may not have your best interest at heart.

~Which adoption. There is adoption through the foster care system, adoption domestically of a baby that a mom is placing, international adoption, and even embryo adoption. Which one is right for us, and can we do them ALL?!?! :)

~Do we wait and save the money before we move forward in an adoption, or move ahead and trust God will provide?

~Do we adopt special needs children or no?

Please pray for us, if you feel so inclined, as you can tell we have a lot of beautiful decisions to make soon! Also you have adopted could you please comment and tell me which adoption you chose and which agency you went through? Thank you!

Take care and have a blessed weekend beautiful people!!!

Are we really Pro-life?

I know I haven't posted in a while, but that is due to a fantastic thing happening to me.......no longer addicted to the Internet, yay! No but seriously, my drive for Internet has decreased so dramatically in the past month that really all I want to do is hop on and check my email, and then hop right off again. It's been great, and my kids are really appreciating the all the fantastic cooking that has come from less time on the computer :) Since the first few weeks of our move transition were so stressful, I am taking time to do more things that bring me joy, i.e., taking my kids to the park, doing a bible study (Kay Arthur: Lord I Want to Know You has been great so far. It's right where I am at in my walk), cooking good healthy meals, and reading lots and lots of great Christian fiction :)

Sooooo, now that you know why I have been blogging ridiculously little lately, let's dive straight in to a controversial subject.

On to the topic at hand.

Are we pro-life? In asking that question I am going to present to you a scenario.

Imagine an Abortion clinic. It has a 6ft chain link fence around it, so that Christian protesters have to stand far enough away from the clients coming in to get their abortion.

A young woman pulls up in a beat up old car that spits and sputters and squeals until it comes it a jerky stop at the clinic. She slowly, sadly, but determinedly gets out, and begins to walk to the door when she hears a woman yell from the fence,
Protester: "Don't kill your baby! Please, God loves children, and He will provide for you, just trust Him!"

Young unwed teen: "Are you a Christian, lady?"

Protester:"Yes ma'am I am. Please choose life, God will work out all the details. He loves children and He loves you"

Young unwed teen: "Do you have a husband? A house? A car that works? Does your husband have a job?"

Protester: "Yes I do, actually."

Young unwed teen: "How many children do you have?"

Protester: "One boy and one girl......why do you ask?"

Young unwed mother: "Is that all you plan to have"

Protester: " OH yes, we decided our family was complete and my husband got a vasectomy 4 years ago. Again, why do you ask??"

Young unwed teen: "So your telling ME, a non believer, with no husband, no money, and no house, I should trust in "God" to provide for me when it comes to children, and to welcome that unwanted child into my life with open arms because God loves children. And YOU a Christian who trusts in the God I do not know, who has a husband, and money and a home, and a car that works, wont even DARE let the chance of conception happen because your so scared of having more."

Protester: "............choose life.............please....."

Young unwed teen: (as she turns to walk back to the abortion clinic she says over her shoulder) "yeah right......Hypocrite. IF you can't even trust him to take care of you and more children, why should I?"


She rings the bell and an Abortion nurse opens it for her. As the nurse is letting her in, she gets a glimpse of a different young lady among the protesters, and mumbles to herself "didn't I see that young woman in here a few weeks ago to pick up her birth control pills?"




So I ask you again, are you REALLY pro-life?

Let's be clear and make no confusion about my heart on this. I am not saying at all that if you use birth control of any kind, you are pro-abortion. I know many different families with many different views on children, and I know how much each one of them loves the Lord. I try and support all my friends in their personal decision that are between them, their husbands, and God.

But I cannot get away from the hypocrisy of it all when it comes to the pro-life movement in general.

Some of the women I knew, who I KNOW are pro-life, were so horrified when they found out my husband and I were getting a reversal and decided to let God bless us with more children. As many as He wanted actually. They were absolutely disgusted. How can I translate that with their STAUNCH pro-life stance? I just can't.

I volunteered as a counselor/client advocate at a crisis pregnancy resource center and all the while, my hope was that I could encourage, love on, and bring hope in the name of Christ to some of these hurting women. Not all women who came in wanted abortions, some just wanted a free pregnancy test. But some, whom I will never forget, where hurting, and scared, and desperately wanted to keep the baby, but didn't know how to make it work. They reminded me so much of myself at nineteen, pregnant, unmarried and scared to death , when I too had to walk in to a crisis pregnancy center because I couldn't even afford the ten dollar test. I remember the feelings of fear, hurt, and joy that you experience all at the same time when you find out your are expecting a VERY unplanned ill-timed pregnancy.

So I would comfort these women, and tell them about resources in the area who can help them with food, housing, and medical care. Then I would take them to the back room and give them maternity clothes so they could finally get out of their size 5 jeans that are being held together by a rubber band. I wanted so badly for them to know the love and peace of God. The peace that I had found. That is, in every area BUT children. My husband had a vasectomy when our second was only 2 weeks old. We loved the freedom that came with unprotected sex with no complications of having to deal with another pregnancy.

As I look back now I am filled with shame over my hypocrisy. Had any one of those women looked at me and asked "Do you trust God to take care of you if you get pregnant?". I would not have been able to answer.

Thank God that he has shown me the folly of my thinking in that area.

Some people reading this may think my judgments are harsh upon women unwilling to bear any more children for God. But the opposite is true. I RELATE! I remember the decision to get that vasectomy. I remember being sick my whole pregnancy, I remember my husband and I fighting so much, we walked the edge of divorce on more occasions than I could count. I remember feeling like, "I cannot do this again!"

But it was earthly, temporary and drenched in fear, not faith. It would not stay that way for long. Soon God would grow me and teach me to trust in Him. Soon my barren womb would cry out for life, only to be told every month, NO. My husband would also come under the same conviction and reverse what we had done.
I sit here now, 2 years after that reversal with no child to hold, no baby for my womb to nourish and grow, as it begs me each month to do. I grieve as all the women before me have grieved over infertility. Only mine was self inflicted. Fertility was a gift that I took for granted. Something I once had, but we broke.

BUT AT LEAST now I can say honestly to any woman who asks, I am pro-life. I will welcome any child God chooses to give me. And if you choose not to raise your child, I will gladly welcome that child into my home also.


In closing I say with love, don't just be pro-life in your politics.....be pro-life in your homes.

Well hello there.

Hi everyone, remember me?? My name is Valerie. I started this blog....whats that? You don't remember me? OK OK enough with the dramatics :)
I really have been wanting to blog lately, really. But thinking of blogging and actually blogging are..well....you guessed it.....TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS. So here is the update on me. I have been super busy with getting settled back in here, after all our gallivanting in Texas, Colorado and Arkansas.
I am still exploring all it means to have PCOS, and possibly figuring out what is preventing me from conceiving. I truly believe God's hand is in every pregnancy and nothing goes on without his knowledge. Yet at the same time I feel compelled to figure out what is going on with me. Things are just not right in "Valerie Town" if ya know what I'm sayin. Anyhow, I have been charting my temperature, to see if I show any signs of Ovulation. I am doing this because, how we figure out whats going on with me, and HOW to treat me, depends on if I ovulate, or if I don't. If I do ovulate, whats preventing pregnancy? Things like that. Anyhow, I got a blood test today to check my levels of Progesterone (you can read more about why progesterone levels are important here). Hopefully it comes back normal, but I am showing "some" signs of it being low. If that is the case, I may possibly be conceiving, but I don't have enough of the hormone progesterone to sustain that pregnancy. If that is the case, it breaks my heart, but God is good, and I know we will work through all of this.
On another note, I finish my last DHS adoption class tomorrow! yay. Although that does not really complete us, since my husband starts his classes next Saturday, and does his for the next 6 weeks. blahhhh BUT when that is done and we sign our final papers, we should be on our way to adopting a precious child who needs a home. He or She will come to a home that greatly desires more children.

Well I was going to do a "short" (ha!) part on catching you all up, and then a longer part on our new chore system that I created. But alas, as always, I was long winded, so I will do my chore post tomorrow.
I truly hope all of you have a BLESSED weekend.

p.s. My handsome man and I went on a date tonight (first time in wayyyyyyy too long) and we saw the movie "Letters to God". We loved it. It's RARE with a capitol "R" that Jake and I ever go to the movies, due to the junk that is put out of Hollywood, but this one was clean as a whistle (with the exception of a few low cut tops), and was so very sweet. I totally suggest watching it. It has a fantastic Christian message.

where have I been?

So where have I been? Traveling exotic Islands? Visiting family in another state? Nah, just here in my home. Where I love to be. But emotionally....I have not been able to blog. I have been talking things over with God. As I announced a couple weeks ago, I have been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Its nothing life threatening, or even debilitating. But none the less, it was not a fun diagnosis. There is no cure, and it is progressive. Meaning I am only at the beginning of this and things will probably get worse. I sort of didn't understand the diagnosis at first so I did not really get worried about it. Then the next day I talked to some women who had it and looked it up on the Internet and realized "CRAP! this is not good". One woman I know has a very severe case, and it does worry me I may get some of the severe symptoms of it. That led me to cry for three days straight and once again, pour it all out before my heavenly Father. He is so good to always hear me. I asked questions, told Him how I felt, asked him to calm my spirit, told him I was confused......and on and on it went, for days. Finally, thanks to kind words from my husband, my sister in law, and several friends, I accepted the fact that waiting was all I could do. Nothing is certain. This does not mean it will end in permanent infertility. With God all things are possible. But that does not mean that His will is the same as mine. So I wait. I wait for His revelation. I wait for His plan.

On the upside.....

I saw a great OBGYN in my area who specializes in infertility. She is going to help me figure out how to stay on top of the PCOS. I HATE medications, the majority of the time, but I am very optimistic about the one my doctor put me on. It is to help with the insulin issues that PCOS causes. PCOS tends to make all sugar you eat turn instantly into fat instead of using it as an energy source. Which would totally explain my tiredness and weight gain. WHEW!! glad I have something to blame that on..lol But it PCOS can lead to diabetes and obesity, if you are not extremely careful, which I am trying to be. I have completely cut sugar out of my diet, so I am hopeful that will help.

One good thing about the medicine is that it "can" also help some of those nasty ovarian cysts go away. I have been blessed in the fact that my cysts don't seem to be very painful. I know many women who were doubled over in pain with theirs, and so far mine have not been that way.

Another thing is that the medicine I am on typically causes side effects of nausea and diarrhea, neither of which I have been having. I am praising God for this, as I know things could be a lot worse.

So although my baby-making wishes may never happen, and my health may not be "ideal" God shows over and over, that although we are not in Heaven yet, we shall be one day. What a glorious place Heaven will be, with no unfulfilled need, no sickness, so sadness, no pain. God is good. In total contrast to this world that is dying day by day and crying out to God under the weight of sin.

Anyhow, all I can say, is that its been a rough week, but God is making it a whole lot better. Day by day I am encouraged. Day by Day, I am renewed. But I have a long way to go. That is why I have spent so much time away from blogging. I am needing more time with my family, and His word. Plus homeschooling, baking, cooking, cleaning, bible study, church, grocery shopping, sewing classes, tend to take up my time as well :)

So what have you all been up to these days??

Reasons I cry.

There are many reasons I cry these days. One reason, and probably the most prominent is my hormones. I have cysts on my poor little ovary. It is causing some hormonal imbalances. Not too bad, but there is a lot of crying over silly stuff. Movies (especially No Greater Love!). Bible passages. Text messages. Stress. Songs on the radio. Wanting to conceive.

Another reason I cry is feelings of inadequacy. I so want to serve God. I want to truly train my kids in the way they should go. I want to be a great cook of healthy yummy foods. I want to be a good housekeeper. I want to be the best homeschooling mom and teach my kids allllll kinds of cool things. I want my daughter to continue with violin lessons, because she loves it so much (and she is soooo good). I want to be a good friend. I want to be a great wife. I want to catch up on the challenge of reading the bible in 90 days. The thing is though, I just cannot do it all. There just isn't enough time. I'm not strong enough either. I need help. I need God. Why do I forget this so often?? Praise the Lord He speaks to me, and cuts through the junk in my mind. Luckily I serve a King who does not expect me to do it all. Just Love and serve. To lean on him.

The last reason I cry......when I hear this song (lyrics are typed below)


Savior, please take my hand
I work so hard, I live so fast
This life begins, and then it ends
And I do the best that I can, but I don't know how long I'll last


I try to be so tough
But I'm just not strong enough
I can't do this alone, God I need You to hold on to me
I try to be good enough
But I'm nothing without Your love
Savior, please keep saving me

Savior, please help me stand
I fall so hard, I fade so fast
Will You begin right where I end
And be the God of all I am because You're all I have

Hallelujah
Everything You are to me
Is everything I'll ever need
And I am learning to believe
That I don't have to prove a thing
'Cause You're the one who's saving me

A post on all things personal

OK, just an FYI this post may be filled with TMI. For those of you who may not know, that stands for TOO MUCH INFORMATION. If you are looking for a fun post on homeschooling go to Raisingolives.com, or posts on great adventures in traveling across the states go to blogginbridget.blogspot.com, and if you love learning more about scripture and theology, and creation, Celee has some awesome posts lately on that at http://miscellaneousmusings-x.blogspot.com/. But alas, today I only have my little dilemmas and small revelations that God has given me about some personal things I have been going through lately, so if you are interested, here goes.

Update on growing our family. No,I am still not pregnant. I will talk further on my thoughts on that in a bit. But for now I would love to share with you that we had our first homestudy visit last night. The "homestudy" is the next step in our process towards adoption. It is kind of a scary step in the sense that a person comes into your home, asks you a TON of personal questions, judges your answers, inspects your home, investigates your background, your history, your family, your friends, and basically just freaks you out a little bit. At least that's what I had been told. Our lady who is doing our homestudy however, was awesome! I had heard horror stories on the homestudy people being aloof and taking up to a year to get the work done. I don't think that will be the case with her. She was efficient, fast moving, kind, personable, and I am almost certain a Christian. So we have one more homestudy visit left, and 27 hours of classes to go. Either way, we are starting, and that is exciting.

How I feel about not being able to conceive for the past year and a half. I think I feel differently every month actually. The first few months of trying, were disappointing, the next few months of no conception was when I foolishly allowed myself to become bitter. The few months after that I was sad and disappointed, almost to the point of depression and still held on to a bit of the bitterness. Now I think I am at a point that I need to be in. A point of honesty, with myself, and with God. A point of forgiveness with myself and my husband for what we had done. No more bitterness, no more anger. The greatest part of all though is that I am at a point were I truly realize the power and sovereignty of God, and rest in that. I can write a whole post on just the subject of what God is revealing to me about decisions, consequences, grace, forgiveness, and how He makes ALL things new again. But for now, I will just say, this is where I am at. I love Him, and I love my family. Yet still I grieve for the opportunity to have a child within my womb. I probably always will.

Physical issues (this it the TMI part). I had an ovary removed and year and a half ago due to a large dermoid cyst on my right ovary. Since then things have gone a little down hill. Within the last 7 months my hair is changing, my cycles are changing, my sleep is changing, even my skin is changing. I have been spotting before my cycles now for 6 months. As of this last cycle, I am now spotting before and AFTER my cycle (see I told you this may be more than you wanted to know about me :) On top of all of that, for the last 3 weeks I have woken up EVERY night drenched in sweat (in the middle of winter, may I remind you). I am 28 and having HOT FLASHES PEOPLE!! So I went to my primary care physician, and told her what was going on. Two things were discussed, both of which I already suspected. My thyroid possibly being out of whack, and the possiblity that I am going through perimenopause. Are you shouting at your computer "wait Valerie, you are only 28, its impossible to go through menopause that early!". Actually it has been known to happen to women who have had an ovary removed. It usually happens within the first two years. Which is exactly where I am at. Thyroid is another possibility and would explain a lot. Anyhow, my doc sent me to the lab to do blood work. She ran tests to check hormone levels and thyroid. Both came back normal. This should comfort me, right? No. Unfortunately for myself I sort have a sick addiction to self diagnosing sites like WebMD. I have learned that even if you are in perimenopause (perimenopause meaning you are starting menopause, but not fully in Menopause) your hormone levels will stay "normal" on tests. They will only register "abnormal" when you are IN menopause. So no comfort with that at all. As far as the Thyroid is concerned, unfortunately I have been told by several people with thyroid issues that it is incredibly hard to pin point your exact problems with thyroid. So I sort of feel back as square one. I am OK though. I hate that things are going a little wacky with me physically, and the thought of my one precious ovary shriveling up at the age of 28 makes me want to crawl in bed and cry. But at the end of the day, this is my life. What will I make of it? Will sit around depressed over things I cannot change? Certainly not. Will I have remorse for what I have done (Jake and I deciding to get he vasectomy)? Always. But for now, I will praise my God, that He has given me so much that I do not deserve already. I am reaping SOME consequences of my decisions, but not near as many as I could have. God has been gracious and merciful to me. He has always bestowed such great blessings on me. So do I doubt Him now that He is not giving me what I want? No. I did for a while, but not now. I am learning so much about this great God I serve. So for now, I leave you with my personal issues, of life, learning, hot flashes and periods.
Oh please do come again after this post! :)
p.s. if you are a doctor or nurse (or have gone through this) please post some info for me! I am always on the lookout for free advice!

A long one, but a good one.

I got this email today from a very sweet friend on the subject of my last post, primarily, adoption.

"Are you going to elaborate? I know of people that have adopted, but I have no idea what all it involves. Seems a little scary to me. Also, I was wondering what brought about the change of heart about having more children. I was reading in the Voddie Baucham book, um, Family Driven Faith, where that's what happened to him and his wife, too. I was just wondering what set of events God might have used for you. (I would completely understand if you don't feel like sharing all that.)

May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you peace."

I share that so that I can answer it here on my blog because this is not the first time I have received this question. I fail to talk about it sometimes on the blog because I feel like I have talked about it to everyone I am near sometimes and that maybe everyone is sick of hearing about it. Guess not, though, huh? Sooooo since, at least, one person has not heard why my husband and I feel the way we do, I am going to dig into it again :)
I will save the adoption question for another blog post that I am planning to write soon. So for now I will briefly tell of how my husband and I came to want more children, even after we had one boy and one girl, the PERFECT American dream (*dripping with sarcasm*).
My husband and I were married at 20 and 19. I was 20 and had a 4 month old little girl that I brought to the marriage. If being married young, with a child already (who was not biologically his) was not hard enough, my husband was in the army and we were married just 3 months after 9/11. But we were living on love folks! We greatly enjoyed (well most of the time) our first 10 months together at Fort Hood Texas. It was ignorantly blissful until we started noticing some not too fun habits in one another. He avoided conflict and hid things from me. I, in my pathetic need to always feel loved smothered and controlled him. We were making it though. Then my husband received a telegram (yes, they still send those) and it stated he was to report to a one year unaccompanied (meaning he cannot take wife or children) deployment to the Demilitarization zone in South Korea. We had heard of many soldiers being deployed there so it was not a total shock, but it was devastating. He moved to Korea 2 months shy of our first wedding anniversary and I moved back home to California. Over the phone over the next few months we discussed having another child. We had a "hey, why not?" attitude about it. We were a little nervous, a little excited. He came home for a 28 day visit after being gone for 9 months. A week after he returned to Korea following his brief visit, I found out we were expecting. I told him over the phone. We were excited. For a little while at least. I quickly got very sick with morning sickness and had to move in with my mom. By the time his deployment was up I was four months pregnant. For many reason that I cannot disclose at this time, our marriage was falling apart. We held on to the hope of it all working out but made the decision, based on morning sickness, stress, and family pressure, to have a vasectomy as soon as my son was born. And we did. Now, skip forward 4 years. We almost divorced many times, and barely hung on. But then my husband committed his life to Christ. He had known the Lord before, being raised in a Christian home but he had not committed to him. He was so different and so was I. We both started to learn what it was like to walk with Christ, not just sort of notice him in the background. At that point He got deployed to Iraq. Another one year deployment. I was so concerned it would kill all the progress that had begun. But I was wrong. God did many miraculous things in Jake's heart during that year. Mine too actually. We grew closer to God and each other during it. But God started to stir a desire within me for more children. I am not kidding when I say i would lie awake and talk to God saying "Surely you don't want US to have more kids?!?! I mean a baby would be cute and all, but you were there, you remember how much I puke! And Jake, well he loves you and all but He doesn't ever want more kids. He can't wait until these two leave for college!" I went on and on having conversations with God like that. Over and over I would tell him of my confusions over my little flame growing within me, but still it stayed. So when he got what the army calls his "mid-tour" (meaning his trip home to visit in the middle of his tour), I sat with him at a coffee shop and asked him point blank
me: "would you ever consider having more children?"
him: *cough cough* *spit out a little coffee* "no! Why do you?"
me: *eyes looking down, ashamed* "well sort of, only a little though"
him: "well sweetie, maybe one day we will adopt, but as you know, we cant have anymore ourselves and I don't want a reversal"

The conversation was left there. I did not want to spoil our only time together in 5 months. So that was it until one of the last days he was home before he had to return to Iraq. I was watching something and it had a lady who was going to have a child on it and I burst into tears. It was pain. It was raw. And he had no idea what was going on with me. I told him again, that I had a desire to have more children, and that although I respected his decision, it still hurt to loose that hope. He looked deeply sad to see me hurt, and I knew the old Valerie could have taken advantage of that situation and manipulated him into making some sort of decision that would make me happy. But the thing was, I didn't want to just make me happy, I wanted to please the Lord and I knew it would not please the Lord for me try and "get my way" or even to speak about it again. He was calling me to leave it to him. I knew that in order to affirm this desire was from God, then He would have to come through my husband. So not another word was said about it and we had a fantastic few days together before he left. I did not bring it up again. Although I always had a cheerful attitude with my husband, and was working really hard at leaving it in God's hands, my womb still cried out for a child. One month later God answered my prayer. My husband informed me he was sad about the vasectomy and that God simply "would not let him be!" (his words exactly). He said he did not know what to do about it, but that he was going to pray about it. I said "OK". My heart soared with hope. One month after that he said, very casually, "why don't you look up some vasectomy reversal stuff and see how it works." So I did. I reported to him what I had found, including a Christian doctor only and hour and half from us that did reversals incredibly cheap, as a christian ministry. My husband said, "OK make me an appointment with him as soon as I am scheduled to get home." And I did. He got home, we got the reversal done, we got fantastic results and the doctor gave us a 96% chance of conceiving (although he was clear to point out it was God who decides).
Now it is a year and half later and still no child. But we are different people. WE love children as we have never loved them before. The desire to have more children had led to us loving the two we have even more. It lead us to our decision to homeschool. It led us to our decision to adopt and maybe even foster. It lead us to love children in such a passionate way that it brings tears to our eyes. There is nothing more sweet than to watch my sweet husband get on his knees and plead with his heavenly father to bless us even more. He desires for more children, but we love and know God enough to do our best to be content with what he has given. But we will never be the same. The vasectomy was by far the worst decision we have ever made, and the one we regret the most. Our children even cry for siblings they may never have. And it was all our doing. God gave us a precious gift, a LIFE giving gift, and we threw it back at him and said "thanks, but no thanks". OH what I would do if I could go back again. But I cannot. So for now, I will love all children that God brings my way, be it biological or adopted, or even just kids I meet at the library or in a store. For they are a precious gift. So apart from my sadness at not having yet conceived and the fact that babyshowers can sometimes be serious cry fests for me, the reversal was a wonderful gift from God, but his greatest gift was the reversal that took place in our hearts. For truly we are changed for the better.
Oh God let us never despise your good and perfect gifts!